


The Womp-Rat

by TylrLoki



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Accidental Force Healing, Blanket Permission, Blood and Injury, Broken Bones, Force Healing (Star Wars), No Dialogue, Other, Planet Jakku (Star Wars), Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:40:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27035068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TylrLoki/pseuds/TylrLoki
Summary: Rey's first shots at Force HealingFor Whumptober 2020, day 15, 'Magic Healing'
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	The Womp-Rat

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty different for me, first sequels fic, not as heavily researched, and first time finishing a fic in a day, but as soon as I saw the magic healing prompt, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. 
> 
> TW: temporary harm to animals, broken bones, blood

The first thing Rey healed was a rat.

A baby womp-rat, to be specific. It had wriggled it’s way into her AT-AT at some point while she was away, doing her daily scavenging. It was curled up in a shadowy corner, near the door, laying in a puddle of its own blood. Upon closer investigation, the blood came from a missing back leg, now little more than a leaking hole, adding yet another stain to her floor. At first, she was unsure if she should help it, put it out of its misery, or just leave it be. She had been thirteen at the time, well enough versed in living alone, but not yet confident in all her decisions. She had squatted down next to it, and meant to shift it to inspect the damage, but almost as soon as she had it on it’s back, the bleeding  _ stopped _ . Her hand rested lightly on it, buzzing with heat from an energy she couldn’t hope to explain. 

The gaping hold closed, layer by layer, and before she could wonder what and how, the creature looked like it never had the leg to begin with, just a smooth area with no hair. It sat up, sniffing at the area, as if it couldn't believe it was alive either. Then, as if nothing had happened, it stood up, hobbling away. Rey stayed there for a moment, looking back and forth, between the living rat, and the entirely real puddle of blood on her floor. 

As odd as it seemed in hindsight, she more or less shrugged it off. Without any way to make sense of it, or better options, she simply wiped up the puddle, and continued her evening. 

The next time came four years later, just before she turned eighteen, She had been out scavenging, picking over a well-traveled Star Destroyer. The thing was almost bare by then, nothing left but the hull pretty much, but she had just lifted a sef of climbing gear from a TIE the desert coughed up, untouched since the fall of the Empire. The wreck lay on its belly, as if the crew had actually landed it, and celigings rose dizzying heights from the floor or sands below, but, portions were portions. Besides, if she fell, she wouldn’t have to wait any longer. 

The kit held a functional hook blaster, for lack of a better word, amazing enough on its own, but also a serious length of good rope, and even a harness. She may have known nothing about climbing, but she knew a few knots, which she could only hope would be enough. The hook caught, first try, solidly wrapped around some piece of the ceiling. With the press of a button on the harness, it whisked her up, nearly cracking her head on the hull in the process. 

Rey was right, it was a treasure trove up there, full of tiny, valuable chips and components that normally didn’t last a week. Even just in the area she could reach, she could eat for  _ weeks _ , she wasn’t sure she could even carry it all. Other than some secluded sections, which caught sand, it looked probably no different than when it first crashed. She could almost see the bright lights, illuminating graceful Imperials, gliding down long, pristine halls. Up here, she could only imagine what it would have been at its height. 

Her bag was around three quarters of the way full, when an odd sense came over her, a deep upwelling of dread, like the feeling in the air right before a sandstorm. Despite her earlier thought, she didn’t  _ really  _ want to fall to her death today, especially not with such a great, new scavenging spot. Almost reluctantly, but trusting her instincts, she decided to cut her losses and start heading down.

The rope snapped about halfway there.

One moment, the gears in the harness were gently whirring her to the ground, and the next, with the sound of snapping nylon and a massive jolt, the line went slack through her fingers, and she plummeted. 

Rey hit with her left heel first, which didn’t stand a chance against the fall, but with that and the shortened distance, it didn’t break her back. She couldn’t feel it snap over the searing flood of pain, shooting straight through her body, but she didn’t need to. Her leg had to be broken, and probably in more than one spot. Worse, that meant she was basically dead, being alone in a scavenged Star Destroyer at night never went well. The desert was unforgiving, and the beings that roamed the scrapyards at night were worse. The bitter anxiety flooding her mind nearly drowned out the pain, as all the terrible ways she could die from this flashed through her mind. 

She knew she had to get up and out, and soon, but she hadn’t the faintest clue how, not with one usable leg. She pulled off her scarf to try and set the break, similarly sacrificing her staff, but as soon as she touched anywhere near the break, she doubled over, almost crying out in pain. Her hand flew over her traitorous mouth, if she screamed, it would practically be a dinner bell. Rey tried to force her fast, shaky breaths to slow, but couldn’t keep them that way. As soon as she would take her mind off of calming herself, and back onto the situation at hand, they would speed up again, and she would start all over. 

Rey sat there for maybe an hour, she couldn’t see the sun and didn’t have a chrono, perfectly still, since any attempt to move brought tear-jerking pain. She had shot down every idea she had come up with, and by then, was out of options, and running out of time. As her mind drifted, halfway brainstorming, halfway unable to cope, it came to the time with the womp-rat. No matter how much she had tried, which, being alone in the desert, was quite a lot, she had never been able to reproduce it, on herself, or anything else for that matter. Not even her cacti. Still, she thought, how could trying one more time make this  _ worse _ ?

She rested her hands as close to the break as she could bear, and  _ focused _ . On what, exactly, she didn’t know, but, as she calmed, and turned her mind wholly to fixing the break, something changed, something she didn’t entirely have words for. Different from the time with the womp-rat, more of a warm glow, instead of a buzz, beginning first in her palms, then spreading deep inside her leg, all the way to the shattered bone. She could feel it shift, moving back into place, and grow as it knit back together. The feeling was far from pleasant, almost like when you reached too deep in your ear, but as compared to the excruciating pain of the last few hours, it may as well have been heaven.

When the glow faded, she pulled her leg up, slowly, and found it to be entirely healed, like it never happened, just like the rat, but better. She stood, carefully, and it held her weight perfectly, although felt a bit rubbery, and she shouldered her bag and staff. Next time she went into Niima, she resolved to check for books on seemingly magic healing. 

And sell that climbing gear. 

**Author's Note:**

> I have a Sith Ahsoka chapter finished in notes, and a Jedi Padme/Senator Anakin fic not far behind, so those will be going up at some point while I chaotically participate in whumptober. Honestly come get y'all's juice I'm gonna be updating like a madman


End file.
